This article has been updated.
Lawmakers in Washington, D.C. approved a $1.2 trillion spending package early Saturday, including funding for a grant program that cities across the country have been using to fund their migrant aid services.
San Antonio city leaders told members of Congress in December that they would need roughly $57 million from the federal government to continue helping migrants move through the city in 2024.
But whether the federal government would be able to deliver that money had looked increasingly precarious after Republicans shot down a different spending deal last month.
On Thursday, city leaders’ fears seemed assuaged when details of a spending package were released indicating it would include $650 million for the federal Shelter and Services Program (SSP), a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant that has been reimbursing San Antonio for running its migrant resource center on San Pedro Avenue and transit center near San Antonio International Airport.
“This [grant] program is a lifeline to border communities like mine and provides crucial funding to nonprofits and NGOs as they assist migrants awaiting the outcome of their immigration proceedings,” U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Laredo) said in a statement announcing the funding agreement.
The overall spending package includes funding for the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, Health and Human Services and other agencies.
The U.S. House approved the bill Friday with the support of 185 Democrats and 101 Republicans. The Senate followed suit after its midnight funding deadline but in time to avoid the effects of a partial government shutdown. The Senate approved the bill 74-24, with 47 Democrats, two independents and 25 Republicans — including Texas’ Sen. John Cornyn but not Sen. Ted Cruz — in favor.
Dwindling funds
Catholic Charities had been using federal grant money to purchase travel fare for migrants to continue their journeys to friends and family in other cities, but dwindling funds in recent months have been directed solely toward basic needs like food and shelter for migrants.
Because of that, some migrants have been staying in San Antonio longer while they try to come up with money for travel fares themselves.
This month City Council began considering whether to continue its migrant work using local dollars or scale back its efforts. The latter, some feared, would mean migrants could start funneling into the city’s services for homelessness.
In an email to the mayor and City Council Thursday evening, Assistant City Manager Jeff Coyle called the $650 million “welcomed news.”
However, he noted, it’s also “a reduction from the $800 million in last year’s budget” for the Shelter and Services Program.
Coyle said the city’s Government Affairs Department would “continue to work with our two appropriators,” Cuellar and U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-San Antonio), “to make sure SSP and other programs of interest to the city continue to be funded.”
Gonzales on defense
This month marks the first time the U.S. House has passed real spending bills since Republicans took control at the beginning of 2023.
During that time a band of conservatives, including U.S. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Dripping Springs), has pushed GOP leaders to withhold spending bills as leverage for their policy priorities — a last resort in Democrat-controlled Washington.
Those conservatives ousted the first GOP House Speaker, Kevin McCarthy (R-California), for approving a short-term spending deal that combined Republican and Democratic votes to keep the government open in October. They were equally disappointed in new House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) over this week’s package.
“I want to be very clear: Any Republican who votes for this bill, they own it, and they are the ones risking the election,” Roy said during a House Freedom Caucus press conference Friday.
That pressure from the right appeared to influence Gonzales, who faces a contentious May 28 primary runoff against a conservative challenger.
Despite serving on the House Appropriations Committee and playing a key role in negotiating the border deal that failed in February, Gonzales voted against Friday’s package, which was approved on a 286 to 134 vote.
“I’m not voting for a bill that gives more money to DHS to do more of the same,” said Gonzales, whose district includes 800 miles of the U.S. border with Mexico.
Gonzales contended that the bill he negotiated would have made a difference in securing the border, while this one “does nothing to fix asylum loopholes, end catch and release or stop the abuse of paroling authorities by the Biden administration.”
Democrats also divided
Cuellar serves as the top Democrat on the subcommittee overseeing funding for the Department of Homeland Security and was the first to celebrate the bill’s passage.
He helped create the SSP program to help border communities shelter migrants in 2014, long before Texas started sending migrants to other cities across the country.
Along with funding for that program, he said he was happy the bill would provide money for overtime pay for Border Patrol agents, as well as technology for border security at and between ports of entry.
“This bipartisan package includes a thoughtful, measured Homeland Security funding bill that will help in securing the southern border, but much more needs to be done,” said Cuellar, who narrowly survived two primaries in 2022 and 2020 but doesn’t face a challenger on his left this year.
With that political threat lifted, Cuellar now leads a group of Democrats on Capitol Hill pushing for more border security.
Other Democrats were less pleased with their party for negotiating a bill that includes funding for an additional 22,000 Border Patrol agents and 8,000 additional detention beds.
U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, an outspoken progressive whose district stretches from South Austin to San Antonio, voted against the deal, which he said included money for “locking up immigrants.”
“The House Republican majority continually forces Democrats to choose between chaos and harm,” he said.
